The Stars Defy Themselves
by CyanGalaxy
Summary: The boys are locked away and it seems like nothing has changed.


The red kept him awake. He saw that blush coloured sunset of the first day when he closed his eyes. The ablaze fire burned through his vision in blurring blobs, the anger of pathetic faces hidden by striped-white paint. It was the colour of blood that leaked through the pig's throat as the boys had screamed for its death, the same kind of red that spilled from Simon and Piggy as they rest of the boys screamed for the same reason.

Sometimes the red made him vomit, when it all got too much in his mind. Sometimes he'd have moments where he'd blank out entirely, and be told after that he'd attacked three nurses and ward staff, screaming Jack's or Piggy's or Simon's or any other boys' name. Sometimes they left him alone in a room for days, arms tied in a constricting jacket, and then all he saw was white until the cycle started again. He wondered how deeply his mind would break itself before the adults here decided to drill a hole into it.

Tonight the dreams of the sadistic, phantom Beast kept him awake, and he bit down on his chapped lip, peeling a dead piece of skin off it, threatening to draw blood – the red.

He closed his eyes again.

But the night was just as loud as the silence, and he couldn't stop the screaming when it was inside his head. Maybe he was messed-up, crazy and insane like the adults told him so. Maybe he deserved the labels, after everything. Perhaps they were _'those boys'_ that turned rabid and into unsalvageable savages, that adults had to hide away from the rest of society.

Ralph's feet dragged along the cold stone of the hallway. The place was absent of other patient's cries, since it was somewhat of a time before the sun rose, but the boy still heard them – different people, same screams.

A shadow stood at the end of the corridor, facing the widow, moonlight bouncing off his eyes. Ralph used to see corruption, and savagery and red whenever he looked at them. Now all he saw was dead, ashen, apathy.

"What are you doing?" Ralph asked, a little too harshly for the quietness of the rest of the world. It really wasn't though – silence was a lie -, so what was the point?

"Gazing." Jack said mindlessly and Ralph wondered how many pills and syringes the adults pumped into him to get him this motionless. He supposed it was made to make him feel safe, but he was just as crazy as Jack apparently, so how long would it be before they both ended up vegetal or catatonic. "The stars are pretty, don't you think, Ralph?"

Ralph didn't look at them, didn't even turn to see out the barred window. "Can't seem 'em."

Jack shrugged, as if Ralph was talking about the stars being covered by clouds. "That's true, I guess. On the Island you could see thousands of them. Here, the nightlights are too bright, and people never look up to notice them. The city noise keeps us awake, though we never look up to see something that will calm us to sleep."

"I don't care about the bloody stars." Ralph said, clenching his fists and drawing blood from his nails that pieced his palms. Red. They were long now, jagged and broken – unlike the chewed, thin ones they used to be. He liked that they were different, even if they hurt. He also liked that he couldn't see the stars. He liked that he was in a nuthouse back home in England with adults to tell him when to eat, what to wear, how to behave - even if he didn't have his freedom. He had total complete power and freedom on the island, and he ended up with a war.

"No? Is it the fact they're dead disturb you?"

Ralph glared at him through eyes that felt like fire. "You God-damn well know what disturbs me."

Jack turned away. "Mmh..."

"Say his name."

"Who's name?"

"Say his name." Ralph spoke and the secondary three-letter sentence didn't have the same effect as, 'you put the fire out.' Not that either phrase really stood out to Jack. Piggy didn't matter to him, and frankly, neither did the fire.

"If I'm assuming correctly, you're wanting me to address your dear old friend. Shame he had to die, that Piggy, but it was a different time."

"No." Ralph fumed, because this was the person who screamed through the 3 AM darkness, this was the person who died because Ralph couldn't save him, and this person had a name, but Jack didn't care – he deserved to care, because he deserved to hurt just as Ralph did. "His real name. Say it! Say his real name!"

"I – I don't know what it is. He never told us."

Suddenly Jack was on the stone floor, and a real, human shout erupt in the air, and by the time doctors, and nurses – adults – pull a rage-blinded Ralph away from a weak, bloodied Jack on the ground, the later boy spoke.

"You didn't know his name, either!" Jack choked out, red spilling from his split lip, cradling his rips, looking like he would double-over any second from where he kneeled.

And the words and the sight and the red made Ralph pause, falling limp against the adults' arms that held him where he was. He knew. Ralph knew that he didn't know Piggy's name. He had his screams embedded into his mind, and his blood all over his hands; but he didn't have a name for the person whose life he lost. It ate at him every single second, because by not knowing, Ralph would never find relief, or closure, or forgiveness.

He bloody well knew that.

Yet he deserved to never know, either.


End file.
